14 August 2012

My vision for the world

Friends,
I want to tell you about a small part of my life, or more accurately, I want to try and paint a picture for you that will tell you about my past, my present, and our future.

Comic books. If we were to sit down and have a conversation about a significant part of my past and what my biggest influence was, I would say comic books.

Why comics? First - they’re fun. Second - they’re an excellent medium for story telling. Third - I liked the stories. Fourth, taking a careful look to examine the structure of the american comic book leads us to a fascinating world where readers see beautifully drawn stories of perseverance and a fight for justice and equality. This juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence can inspire us to deal with real world issues by showing us worlds of possibilities.

One of my favorite and most well known characters is the Batman. Here is a story of a guy that grew up a wealthy orphan. Eventually, he becomes a vigilante that hunts down the most dangerous criminals. He chooses that fight because he believes in justice and that people in his community should not have to live in fear.

Stories like those called to me as a child because I could empathize with the people that he dedicated his life to protect.

For my present I want you to know about some of my strengths.
These aren’t physical strengths but key aspects of who I am as a person.
Here are my top 5*,

appreciation of beauty and excellence,

fairness equity and justice,

love of learning,

perspective (wisdom),

curiosity and interest in the world

These matter because I try to incorporate the practice of these strengths into my daily life. For example, I am usually involved in the study of some craft or skill, at the time that I'm writing this, I'm studying ballroom dance, drawing, guitar, and the principles of strength and conditioning coaching. This is my daily practice of a love of learning.

My passion is to make my life meaningful; to make each day matter; each day to move us to a future that we can all believe in.

I believe in a world where certain basic things would be abundant enough to be taken out of the money system and be available-free-to everyone: food, housing, health care, education, and transportation.

I was inspired to hope for those things because of something I read by Howard Zinn in his book, the People’s History of the United States. Like Zinn, I believe that this can be accomplished by using incentives of cooperation and win-win situations.
I believe that practicing my strength of fairness and justice will help us get there.

I learned a lot from comic books. That everyone is a hero in their own way; everyone has villains they must face; everyone has a responsibility to their community. I take an active role in planning my daily life to practice and take advantage of my signature strengths with the hope that I can turn my vision into a reality.